A friend sent me some info about the new US passports. I found a link to the Washington Times story from March. If you felt uncomfortable with the RFID stuff before, wait till you read this. Turns out the government outsourced the production of passports to a Netherlands company that does part of the production in Thailand, and used unsecured couriers. On top of that, their technology was compromised by Chinese espionage.

The link is below:
Passports

There was an interesting article about credit derivatives that I came across today. It discusses JP Morgan’s role in credit derivatives. Sort of ironic that the company that hatched this stuff is still around while many of their competitors have gone belly up. I thought it was pretty interesting. The link is below:

CreditDerivatives

At the end of the article, in the comments section, is a wonderful quote:
“Remember, don't let your dog guard your lunch, and don't let the government guard your money”

Although I admit I'm a little late viewing it, I just watched the Saturday Night Live VP debate spoof. Pretty good. Tina Fey does an amazing job as Palin.

Link to video:
Debate

A friend sent me the following stock market related definitions:

NEW STOCK MARKET TERMS FOR 2008........AND BEYOND

CEO --Chief Embezzlement Officer.

CFO-- Corporate Fraud Officer.

BULL MARKET -- A random market movement causing an investor to mistake himself for a financial genius.

BEAR MARKET -- A 6 to 18 month period when the kids get no allowance, the wife gets no jewelry, and the husband gets no sex.

VALUE INVESTING -- The art of buying low and selling lower.

P/E RATIO -- The percentage of investors wetting their pants as the market keeps crashing.

BROKER -- What my broker has made me.

STANDARD & POOR -- Your life in a nutshell.

STOCK ANALYST -- Idiot who just downgraded your stock.

STOCK SPLIT -- When your ex-wife and her lawyer split your assets equally between themselves.

FINANCIAL PLANNER -- A guy whose phone has been disconnected.

MARKET CORRECTION -- The day after you buy stocks.

CASH FLOW-- The movement your money makes as it disappears down the toilet.

YAHOO -- What you yell after selling it to some poor sucker for $240 per share.

WINDOWS -- What you jump out of when you're the sucker who bought Yahoo @ $240 per share.

INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR -- Past year investor who's now locked up in a nuthouse.

PROFIT -- An archaic word no longer in use.

There was an interesting article in SF Chronicle back in September, talking about a Stanford professor’s work on developing a greener cement. The general process involves bubbling CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from a power plant through seawater. This locks in CO2 into one of the ingredients of the concrete. It eliminates the need to heat limestone to 1000 degrees Celcius, which in turn eliminates a large amount of CO2 that a typical cement plant emits.

The process is still being worked on, with a test facility in California up and running. Further tests will have to be done to verify this new concrete meets building codes and other requirements. If it works, it will help the CO2 problem. The interesting bit in the article was that China is building one coal-fired power plant a week, and each plant emits enough CO2 to cancel out the benefits of every hybrid in the US. Fascinating.

In viewing the comments to the article, I also ran across another product called aerated autoclave concrete (AAC). It seems like it is lighter, stronger, and greener than traditional concrete. It is used some in the US but more overseas. So I put the link to their website below as well.

Link to Green concrete article:
Green cement

Link to AAC:
AAC